Rumors are swirling that Bookbaby and Lulu have lost their distribution deals with Apple's iBookstore.

A little birdie tells me--the same little birdie that alerted me to the Kobo deal some months back-that both Bookbaby and Lulu have lost their status as Approved Apple Content Aggregators. Now, no word on this, overtly, is forthcoming from Apple, of course; but a quick check of Apple's approved list of Aggregators shows that Lulu and Bookbaby are glaringly absent.

Sources say that Apple's sick of dealing with content upload problems, and is paring down their exposure to Aggregators to the companies consistently delivering quality content. Other sources state that while Apple claims that it wants to "own" the ebook space, it also has no desire to own Amazon's staffing requirements, put in place to deal with the Niagara of self-publishing authors. For the purposes of this post, we'll ignore the cognitive dissonance those two goals invoke. So for now, only a very few channels remain for self-publishers and indies to get their content on Apple--Ingram, InScribe Digital, InGrooves, and Smashwords...and there's heavy money being bet on Smashwords going the way of Bookbaby soon. The lesson here? Before deciding on distribution deals (in the biz, "distro"), make sure you've signed with a firm that can bring something to the table...and last through dinner.

Did Kobo's pricing discounts really affect you?

Everyone reading this news article has probably read or heard about the furor over discounting at Kobo (an ePub distributor, e-bookseller, device-maker and reading application maker), and how it's affected Amazon pricing and commissions.  Many authors have removed their titles from Kobo, not wanting Kobo's discounting to reduce their Amazon prices, and thus their commission structure.  But customers distributing their ePubs through InGrooves no longer have to worry about that, and are getting a better commission structure through InGrooves!

This past week, Kobo executives agreed to provide commissions to InGrooves' distribution partners that exceed their normal commission structure for self-published authors.  Instead of the 50/50% deal that is normally offered, InGrooves' authors will receive a 70/30% commission structure, resulting in a net royalty to them of 65%--a 20% increase.  In addition, Kobo has agreed to cease discounting without the express permission of the author, eliminating the Amazon-pricing "Death Spiral" that has recently caused significant income loss to Kindle authors. 

Contact me if you need further information about this development. 

Update:  This article no longer relevant as of year-end, 2011.